


Absolute Conquest

by Siera_Knightwalker



Category: Naruto
Genre: All Naruto Arcs, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Ambiguous/Open Ending, BAMF Dai-nana-han | Team 7 (Naruto), BAMF Haruno Sakura, BAMF Uchiha Sasuke, BAMF Uzumaki Naruto, Badass!Sakura, Big Brother Uchiha Itachi, Chunin Exams, Dai-nana-han | Team 7 (Naruto)-centric, Dai-nana-han | Team 7 Bonding (Naruto), Dai-nana-han | Team 7 Dynamics (Naruto), Dai-nana-han | Team 7 Have Issues (Naruto), Disease, F/M, Failing Exams don't mean anything, Gen, Genjutsu Specialist! Sakura, Happy Ending, Haruno Sakura is So Done, Haruno Sakura-centric, Hatake Kakashi Bashing, Hatake Kakashi is OP, Hatake Kakashi is an Asshole, Hopeful Ending, Immortality, Implied Romance, Implied/Referenced Torture, Itachi likes Sakura, Medic! Sakura, Naruto Arcs, Naruto is Just Naruto, Ninjutsu Specialist! Sakura, OOC, Original Character(s), POV Haruno Sakura, Pain, Post-Naruto Time Skip | Naruto Shippuden, Protective Uchiha Itachi, Strong Haruno Sakura, Student!Sakura, Tecahing, Uchiha Itachi Has Issues, Uchiha Sasuke & Uzumaki Naruto Friendship, War Arc, alternative universe, dying, failing, kind of, op!sakura, supportive Itachi, teacher!Itachi, team 7 is op
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-05
Updated: 2021-01-05
Packaged: 2021-03-15 08:00:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28560213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Siera_Knightwalker/pseuds/Siera_Knightwalker
Summary: Sakura didn't want to be just Sakura anymore. She wanted to be strong, she wanted to seen. She wanted to be heard. She wanted to not be ignored. She wanted to apprentice under a man with a genjutsu so strong the whole Village seemed to forget he was there. And all she had was stubbornness to guide her there.
Relationships: Haruno Sakura & Nara Shikamaru, Haruno Sakura & Uchiha Itachi, Uchiha Sasuke & Uzumaki Naruto, implied Haruno Sakura/Uchiha Itachi
Comments: 13
Kudos: 158





	Absolute Conquest

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this in two halves. And I have no idea how it turned out.  
> I hope you enjoy it. This is what I do when a new idea strikes. Get crazy and go into a different zone in my head.
> 
> Anyway, thanks sendshiversdownyourspine for the random inspiration, I guess! Talking to you just made me think this as a result. I hope this isn't too disappointing... I'm not exactly a regular writer and I probably should have spent more time thinking about this fic before writing it all like I'm puking it all out.

Sakura stood her ground. Her body in a textbook perfect bow. Her posture had never been the problem. Neither was her determination. But even with both, she felt helpless. How was she going to get stronger without a teacher? She wasn't Naruto, who only needed to fight opponents to get stronger; and she wasn't Sasuke, who seemed to grow stronger by pure determination. She wasn't either of her teammates.

All she had was her stubbornness to keep pushing.

"Please teach me!"

Her head bowed lower, her eyes on the shinobi shoes that was still in front of her. He hadn't walked away, but he hadn't accepted her either.

Her mind ran through all the things she had observed about this man, while thinking of how she could be accepted as his student.

"I-I'm not graceful like you, b-but I will promise to learn everything you teach me. I may not be deadly but I can pull off any technique you teach me that is within my chakra capacity." She could, _she could_. She had tried an E-rank fire ninjutsu then an E-rank earth ninjutsu and pulled it off with the same ease. She just had so little chakra capacity that she couldn't throw any of the big ninjutsu around.

"I have good chakra control, and I was assigned as the genjutsu type!" She said, her voice going a little high pitched with nervousness.

"Just like you." She looked up into pitch black eyes, set into a familiar face that she couldn't seem to place. She immediately looked down, unable to bring out the strength to keep looking into those piercing yet confused eyes. A black cloak covered the rest of his body with a red cloud pattern.

She had no idea who this man was, but she had noticed him walking through the streets and he had caught her eyes as the perfect candidate. Where Kakashi-sensei seemed like the reactive type of person, this man was definitely a proactive person. He weaved genjutsu around him like they were the wind instead of chakra. The stirrings of chakra were so light that even though she was staring at him while he put it, she had almost been caught in it.

She was sure there were more genjutsu on him but she couldn't even detect the chakra in her system, let alone flush it out without being overly obvious now. But that was in hindsight. She hadn't even noticed those extra genjutsu layers until she was standing right next to him.

The other man laughed.

"Do you think he's really going to teach _you?_ "

A flash of determination sung through her veins. Her head snapped up to look at the other man right in the eyes.

"And why not?" She stepped in closer to the intimidating man, "Everyone wants to have the strength to protect themselves, or to protect their loved ones. Everyone has a 'precious person'." She quoted Naruto, her frustration mixing with her anger. Her chin lifted higher. "So yes, I might end up as a career chunin, if you think that means I won't find a way for my friends to survive, you don't know me at all."

She thought about Sasuke laying on the bridge, covered in needles and her helplessly standing in front of the client, doing absolutely nothing. Unable to even deflect a blow from the missing-nin who actually attacked the client, and being forced to rely on Kakashi-sensei.

She remembered chunin exams, she had time and two helpless teammates, and she had stalled until help had arrived coincidentally.

Even if she got rejected by her own jonin-sensei, or by any other teacher, that didn't mean that she would stop. She would learn every scrap of knowledge and next time- _next time-_ she would protect her teammates. She would stand there until her teammates could stand up again.

Her eyes turned to her prospective sensei, her lips a line of determination.

"But I can tell that you have something to protect too." She bowed again, "I want to have the same strength as you. So please, teach me!"

There was a moment of silence.

"Will you walk my path then?"

Sakura looked up at those pitch black eyes and answered.

* * *

The sun was finally rising, and the horizon was lit up in the glow of dawn. Sakura panted, her body ached, heck, her chakra ached. And yet-

"Again." The man said, his face a mask of stoic. He disappeared like the wisp and she ran, her chakra flaring, whirling, touching and reaching farther. Traces of her chakra was all over the field and she connected to every scrap of chakra that identified as her own and she wove it through the training ground. She remembered the last few times and wove it to the sky, as high as she could reach.

When she felt the subtlest sensation she had linked to her new sensei, she drove her chakra into the ground in a violent spike and the sensation disappeared. She jumped. Her fingers weaving through signs.

"Fire Release: Great Fireball Jutsu," and she breathed out a ball of fire at the precise location she felt it.

Something sparked and burnt and she panted when she landed on the ground. She didn't notice her sensei appear again, so she didn't hesitate before running again. She ducked, just barely hearing the three kunai in time, earning her hair a little trim. But she was too out of breath to even complain, not like she would. She had a feeling he didn't deal well with whining.

_There._

At the edge of the field where her chakra had just brushed through, she drove a subtle string of chakra through the Earth towards him, then right as it was about to reach him, he moved tauntingly away. She threw a handful of shuriken at him in frustration, before feeling a spike of dread. Sure enough, the shuriken were deflected and she sensed an overwhelming number come for her.

"Kai." she verbalized, already running.

Dozens of shuriken came for her. The only reason she was able to avoid most of them was because she could actually see them. She kept her senses open for her sensei though. And right then, a wind justu reached her mid step and threw her back into the path of the shuriken.

She made two handsigns, and breathed out wide range wind chakra, same as the one that pushed her on the path of the shuriken. The shuriken lost momentum and fell. A few almost reached her, but she managed to avoid them with only a scratch.

She was totally drained. She was on the verge of chakra exhaustion now.

"You read up on chakra." She turned around to see her sensei standing two feet away from her.

She nodded, unable to verbally answer. He dropped two books beside her, and five scrolls.

"Read these, and continue with Gai's morning training. Your next task is to learn five C-ranks."

"Wa-wait. Sensei." This time, the man didn't disappear like he had a month ago, and the month before that.

"Last time you had given me the task of learning five D-rank ninjutsu, and I learnt all of them with the exact same ease as the other. Is there anything I can do with that?"

Her sensei sighed.

"Your ninjutsu capabilities are excellent while you are still at the lower ranks. When you go up the ranks past B, you will face different problems with different types of elements. For questions regarding higher ranked ninjutsu, you should ask your jonin sensei." Sakura flinched. The man sighed again at that. Sakura's head lowered.

"Sorry, sensei but I can't find Kakashi-san." Her finger curled within. Anger curling in her spine, but also helplessness. The second he could, he had left her. So yes, their team got disbanded months ago, the moment Sasuke walked out of those walls.

But that didn't mean he didn't have to check up on her. That didn't mean he couldn't have given her the time of day. Was she really that terrible, that useless, that he didn't even spare time to check up on her?

"I can teach you fire and water, but not much besides that."

"That's fine sensei." Sakura looked up, determination in her eyes. "I'm not going to be a ninjutsu specialist anyway."

Her sensei seemed to slightly amused at that.

"Very well then, Sakura. That ends this lesson." Sakura's eyes widened at the use of her name. She was sure he knew it, but he hadn't exactly used it in the few months they knew each other.

"I'll see you next month, sensei." He nodded, before disappearing into the wind again. This time absolutely undetectable to her senses.

Sakura started her cool down, collected the books and scrolls before making her way back home. She needed to report to the hospital for the classes she had been doing. She was almost ready to learn actual healing now. Her chakra control had only gotten more precise and better with her studies in chakra. She had to use Shikamaru's access as chunin a lot though.

Without a team, or sensei, she had learnt how tough it was to survive in Konoha. As a mostly nameless genin, it wasn't going to be easy to earn a spot on the teams to enter the chunin exams. But there was a way to get to chunin exams than asking for her friends to help- the medic nin exams.

With Tsunade-sama as the Hokage, the whole hospital was undergoing reforms and each team needed to have a medic. So that's what she was going to do. She needed to get to chunin as fast as possible and her sensei seemed to know that, so he hadn't put much pressure on her while letting her still improve her basics from day to day.

After a few more months, she would be chunin, and her lessons with her sensei would become intense. By then, her body would be strong and her chakra capacity would have increased. Then- _then-_ she would finally be worth teaching.

* * *

_ 1 year later _

"Winner: Haruno Sakura!"

Sakura breathed in a steady breath, her eyes roaming over the absolutely scorched arena ground. At her feet, lay a Konoha shinobi, an earth shield crumbling over his unconscious body.

He had passed out by overheating. Blood leaked from his nose and she bent down, a diagnostic jutsu flickering on her hand. She sighed in satisfaction at seeing no permanent injury before pulling away for the medic nin to come.

She nodded at the one she recognized and reported in medic short hand while they were carrying her opponent to the hospital. When she was done, the other nodded.

"Very well, Sakura-san. Thank you for your help. Please rest up for your next fight." Sakura smiled and waved her away.

"I will. Thank you, Shimizu-san." A shy smile flickered on her lips in response as she pulled away.

Sakura looked around the arena. This was her third time in the chunin exam arena. The first when she was on a team with Sasuke and Naruto. The second when her teammate had gotten critically injured during the second task in Kumo and she had to give him a field surgery to make sure he lived. She had been commended but since she technically failed the second task, she wasn't promoted.

She ended up at the Kumo chunin exam arena as a medic from Konoha, and had cheered on the two other Konoha finalists. By then, she had stopped caring that much about promotion other than it would help her not be a burden on her friends who helped her get higher ranked material for her to read.

She was already assisting in surgeries in the hospital- the only reason she managed to save her teammate- and her sensei was already pushing her so hard she was lucky her bones weren't breaking more than once a month.

She had gotten really lucky to find a sensei like the one she had. She had tagged him as a deadly genjutsu specialist, but he was definitely A or S ranked. He knew fire and water ninjutsu up to S rank, she assumed. And his wind was probably not that far behind. The only reason she assumed that his wind wasn't as good as his fire or water, was because he literally _said so._ She would never have realized it if he hadn't come out and said that he was good at water and fire, and not mentioned wind.

Aside from his ninjutsu, his genjutsu was even more mind boggling that she had realized. Sometimes she wondered how she had seen through his genjutsu at age 12, when she could barely even see through them now, after a year of being taught by the man.

Nonetheless. She thought fondly of their first meeting now.

-x-

_ Flashback _

_"Will you walk my path then?"_

_Sakura looked up at those pitch black eyes and answered._

_"I won't. But-" a smile flickered on her face, "you don't want me to either. Do you?"_

_There wasn't a single change on his face, but somehow she felt like she could sense his feelings already. Was he always this_ _inexpressively expressive or was it just her?_ _She kept looking at his eyes until his eyes lost some of its impassiveness._

_She blinked-_

_-and he was gone._

-x-

Their second meet had been funny though.

-x-

_She was tying her hair up for her morning run when she spotted black from the corner of her vision. She didn't pause, she let go of her hair, snapping her hairband and flowing chakra through it and snapping it at the height of the eyes of an average man behind her._

_She twirled, running and ducking before grabbing a couple of kunai and throwing two blindly. She settled in a crouch, a kunai in front of her and her hair_ _**finally** _ _out of her face._

_Her sensei stared blankly at the hairband and two kunai he had caught, then looked at her with a raised brow, without actually raising his brow._

_She flushed in embarrassment. She assumed he was annoyed about being attacked by her. She should have sensed his chakra earlier._

_"In my defense, you were in my room."_

_He seemed to look disappointed. He dropped the kunai on the floor, still holding onto the hairband._

_"You should always be prepared, though I commend you on your...creativity. Though next time, channel your chakra like this." His chakra changed nature and when he threw it at the window, it pierced through and out, leaving only a tiny hole on it. Sakura's eyes followed the hairband's path through the window with awe until it fell on the ground._

_"You just channeled wind chakra through it. I thought nature transformation could only be done for jutsu." She looked at him, "Please teach me pure nature transformation as well." His form dissipated._

_"Come to training ground 57."_

-x-

Sensei had checked her level and then assigned her study material. In the end, he also gave her a condition- the second she searched for him on her own, he would stop teaching her.

It wasn't a surprising condition. He was probably _Anbu_ or one of those deep cover agents who surfaced once a month or something similar. _Anbu_ generally kept among themselves and never let their identity escape their circle of friends or teammates.

She wasn't either so it made sense.

But his power level was honestly off the charts.

...she might have stumbled across something similar to their secret weapon.

The man wasn't in the Bingo books, from their country or any other- something she checked on whim, she certainly didn't think her dedicated sensei was a missing nin or something. He never gave her his name, never appeared with his companion again, and always responded with whatever she called him be it 'sensei' or 'shishou' or any random name she picked out.

In the whole year she had been taught under him, she had gone from a no-name to famous due to her sheer versatility. While her sensei preferred Fire, she used all the elements aside from lightning equally. Even low level lightning was hard to handle and unfortunately, even her sensei rarely used it aside from a rare few times.

She liked using Earth though, but as her sensei had already told her before, he wasn't well versed in Earth either. She started with fire and almost had pure fire chakra manipulation down, though she might never achieve her sensei's level of perfection since she was using so many elements.

And among it, she weaved her genjutsu.

Where her sensei could fight with pure genjutsu, she was still using genjutsu as a support. But her firepower had increased tremendously with her mastery of fire chakra manipulation, after the exams, she was supposed to start with Water with him, and she was excited about that.

She felt her sensei's chakra at the edge of her senses, meaning he had clamped down on his presence while still letting her know he was watching. She hid a smile and walked to the competitor's box, and took the wary looks with good sport.

Her third chunin exam was at Suna. Suna had recovered pretty well after the invasion, and while they were still hurting for the popularity, this chunin exam would probably ease some of that burden. Her next fight was either a wind user or an earth user. One would give her an advantage and the other a disadvantage. But she had only used subtle genjutsu till now.

There was something she was working on, something that might earn her a little praise from him. Even with all his firepower, her sensei saw himself as a genjutsu specialist and her recognizing that probably played a small part in him accepting her as his student.

She wanted him to know, even though her plan of being a genjutsu specialist with a side of ninjutsu ended up as reverse, she would always see herself as a genjutsu specialist first, and she was still aiming for that.

Though genjutsu was a thousand times tougher than she had imagined.

She rested and ate, and waited for her chakra to recover and analyzed the battle while she rested.

The wind user used small fans that was typically known to be used by Suna nin, and the Earth user seemed to be a ninjutsu specialist, relying heavily on it. In the end, the Earth user won, but he seemed to have used quite a bit of chakra, unlike her, who had basically used a B rank fire style and a genjutsu along with weapons to win.

When she was called to down to fight him, he threw out stone spears at her almost as soon as the match started. She weaved genjutsu, while pulling out weapons and throwing them in retaliation. He, surprisingly, seemed to realize there was a genjutsu, but not in time. He couldn't avoid a few of the shuriken, and he injured his leg, decreasing mobility.

She ran for him and he growled, picking them out and throwing them away. He formed the handsigns while she ran at him.

"Earth Release: Bottomless Swamp," he said and the ground under Sakura turned into a Swamp.

In front of his eyes, Sakura turned into a ball of fire headed straight for him. His eyes widened, realizing what he had seen was a genjutsu. In his panic, he defaulted to his defensive hardening technique, weaving through signs quickly. He already had seen the end result of this kind of technique once.

When it hit him, he screamed.

It felt like his Earth technique wasn't even there. The fire scorched at him, burning him until he felt like dying. He gasped.

Then he opened his eyes, and realized he held against a shorter figure. He turned around and found his opponent looking at him with raised eyebrows.

"Geez, I thought you'd spot that one fast enough." He shuddered before falling to the ground, free from her grip. He came really close to dying right then.

"Ho-how did you do that?" He looked up at her with wide eyes. "I didn't know genjutsu could stop my own jutsu." Her lips curled up into an amused but friendly smirk.

"I guess you'll have to brush up on your genjutsu and find out."

She walked away when the medic arrived. Her opponent still had a few burns even though she ended up saving him.

When she was walking up the steps, an illusion of her sensei formed beside her.

"You created that genjutsu." He said. She grinned.

"I did." There was a pause.

"Well done, Sakura." he disappeared like he always did.

She grinned so hard her cheeks hurt.

* * *

Chunin came and went and she became better and better. She became a medic and though Shizune-san was interested in teaching her about poisons and an antidotes, she didn't learn much other than the emergency treatments. But then she received an interesting offer.

Her chakra control was almost perfect, she had known that. It was even better than her sensei, the one thing that she beat him in, though she wasn't good enough at utilizing what she had just yet. But because of her almost perfect control- almost unheard of- it brought her to the notice of their Hokage.

The Hokage was interested in teaching her.

She almost rejected it outright, but then eluded to someone teaching her and asked for time to decide.

Even if it was her Hokage, she didn't want to betray her sensei. He had taught her his ninjutsu and genjutsu. He talked her out of her depressive phases and she out of his. He noticed _her_ and helped her when no one else had. She was _his_ student.

Even though their meetings had become once two months now, where he would come in for a few hours- teach her something, or discuss something and leave. He was still her sensei. And more than that, they understood the other. She knew their relationship had depth that normal ones didn't. Mostly because he refused to tell her who he was, and she refused to actually ask about him in fear that he wouldn't come back.

In the end, when she didn't meet him in a week, she went ahead and accepted the offer with the single condition that she would give first priority to her actual sensei. Tsunade-sama seemed a little miffed but she accepted it, seemingly curious.

Since she didn't know his name, Tsunade-sama couldn't be sure when he was off duty, and so they depended on whenever her sensei chose to appear. Though she told Sakura to tell her sensei that she would like to talk to him.

She accepted and soon after Tsunade-sama got to fixing up her medical ninjutsu to such perfection, she was sure she could heal almost any life threatening injury as long as she had her chakra. Then Tsunade-sama worked on her taijutsu, instead of the techniques she had been eager to teach. Sakura accepted that and used her Gai and sensei learnt skills against her. Of course, it was less of a 'fight' and more of a 'survive if you can'.

Tsunade-sama was overwhelming in a way that her sensei rarely ever was. Her two sensei were absolute opposites- one a killer and one a healer. One with an absolute commanding presence, and another the lethal blade that cut away with precision. And yet, they couldn't be any more similar at times.

They demanded perfection, and they exhibited it. They were both a lethal blade- one in healing and another in killing. They were both at the pinnacle of their fields- Medicine and Genjutsu.

She wondered how a fight among them would turn out.

Tsunade-sama was unkillable with her Creation Rebirth, and her sensei...she couldn't imagine him losing a fight.

Tsunade-sama taught her everything but any special techniques that required precise chakra control. That is...

...until she met sensei.

-x-

_"Tsunade-sama said she wanted to speak with you," she said nervously to her sensei just as he was about to leave. He froze._

_She paused, surprised._

_This was the first solid emotion she had seen from him, aside from amusement. Wasn't he aware that she was being considered as Tsunade-sama's student? Maybe he was so busy, he hadn't known. But from what she knew, the news was really getting around in the higher ranks._

_"Tsunade-sama wanted to make me her student, and she asked to talk to my sensei since you hadn't told me your name." She looked up and spoke. He was looking at her curiously._

_"Do you want to be her student?" He asked, a trace of curiosity in his voice. She shook her head._

_"I would like to, but I won't if you don't want me to. But she is the Hokage, and she hasn't passed down her techniques yet. If she thinks I can learn it, then I should." Then she smiled a little teasingly, "Plus, Ino is going to be really jealous when she hears about it."_

_He hummed in response._

_"Very well then."_

_Sakura smiled brightly._

_-x-_

There was a slight commotion in the Village after that, but the Hokage seemed to have solved it and since then, she had been watching the Hokage Tower, wondering when her sensei would be done talking to the Hokage. He never left without saying goodbye to her.

He always said it because it might be their last meeting. But this time, he hadn't yet, so he was coming back.

In the end, he never did.

* * *

She got called into the Hokage's office the next day. In the office with the Hokage, stood Shizune, Shikaku, Ibiki and Inoichi. All of them staring at her like she was a particularly curious specimen.

Then she got grilled by Inoichi about her sensei, and who she perceived him as and what she thought about him.

It was slightly confusing but when she asked about her sensei, the Hokage assured her he was a Konoha shinobi, and he was just really busy and might not be able to meet her again. And yes, he was still alive. But no, she wasn't allowed to meet him.

When she asked who he was. They all had a stoic look on their faces, and said that she didn't need to know that just yet.

In the end, they let her go.

Before leaving, she asked if this meant that Tsunade-sama wouldn't teach her, and in response, her Hokage started laughing loudly.

"Child, if only you knew." She said, wiping her tears, still laughing.

"We will start a week from now."

And she was shooed away from the office.

When she left, she felt the slight brush of her sensei's chakra against hers, and she sighed in relief. It had been a genuine worry that her sensei was some kind of missing nin and her Hokage had killed him and hiding his death from her. But, she relaxed, feeling the familiar chakra. And then it disappeared like it had never existed, just like when he left everytime.

_Bye, sensei._

* * *

A year and a half after her chunin promotion, she became a full fledged jonin.

Somehow after her sensei had disappeared, her career had been without hiccups. She had achieved full jonin status along with Shikamaru, which had surprised them both. She had always assumed he would stay at chunin, but it seemed like he was going for his father's position. Even though he was just as bored with life as always.

It took a special person to still be so bored with life as he was when you had a life as active as a chunin. Shinobi life was fraught with death, injury and many many other problems. Who could stand to remain calm in the face of that? Shikamaru, that's who.

Shikamaru seemed to have assumed that she would be a career chunin instead of being fast tracked to the jonin role. He seemed to be pleasantly surprised to see that she was still a frontliner, in spite of being a medic and supposedly following the Four Commandments created by Tsunade-sama.

Well, if she could call 'gaping while she rained hell fire on their opponents' pleasantly surprised, then yes, he was pleasantly surprised.

In all the time, she still wasn't sure who it was who her sensei even was. She probably wouldn't until she stood face to face with him. Though that seemed quite unlikely considering how determined Tsunade seemed to keep them apart.

Nonetheless, she didn't overly mind it, though she sometimes wished she could consult him about some things, sometimes she wondered how he held up without her cheerfully distracting him from his depressive thoughts- which he had a lot of. But she assumed he held up as well as he had before he met her. She sometimes wondered how much of an effect she had had on his life.

Just about then, Naruto came back into her life again. He was still that cheerful blonde he had always been, but this time he was just a tiny bit mature.

Now if only he left his Sexy Jutsu behind...

But she enjoyed their reunion, and then Naruto had a face-off against Kakashi, witnessed by Jiraiya, Tsunade-sama, Shizune and basically people who wanted to check out the official fight. When Kakashi mentioned Sasuke, she realized that she had stopped thinking about him for a long while.

Sasuke was a traitor, but he was also her teammate. She felt conflicted, watching Naruto fight Kakashi. Should she stand beside them again? But she deliberately didn't take part in this fight. She was already a jonin, and she hadn't considered Kakashi as her sensei for a while now. She didn't consider herself a part of Team 7 anymore.

It was a sad realization that she still considered Sasuke a part of it but not herself.

Though, to be honest, she hadn't really been a part of it anyway, right? She had just been there to fill a spot.

With that, they were sent off to rescue the Kazekage.

Suna was the same dry, sandy place it always was, and they arrived there in time to watch Kankuro almost die. Chiyo, an infamous poisoner, attacked Kakashi and was soon disabled, while she checked out Kankuro's situation.

She wasn't specialized as a medic but training under Tsunade-sama had basically made her a medic nin when required. She quickly got the majority of the poison out of his system, then she spent the next 3 hours taking out the remnants by pure chakra. She had a few medics transfer chakra to her during the procedure so she didn't have to take a soldier pill before setting out again after the Kazekage.

She had finally achieved perfect chakra control, so even though she didn't have the know-how to make an antidote, she could replicate that with her chakra. It was also the reason why even though the Suna medic nin didn't have excellent chakra control she was used to, for the chakra transfer to be without a single hitch- aside from Shimizu and Chiyo- she could still make do because _her_ control was perfect.

After a brief rest, they followed Kakashi's dogs to River Country.

There they experienced a hiccup. Or, to be more precise, _she_ did.

Because she was sensing her sensei's chakra for some reason.

But that was impossible. Right?

Unknowingly, she raced forward, dread and confusion mixing. Why was her sensei there? It wasn't like Hokage-sama had ordered him to come here. So what was he doing, standing in the middle of their path, waiting for them to come?

As she raced forward, the dread increased until she reached the field.

"Everyone, stop." Kakashi ordered the rest of the group.

"Why...why are you here?" She whispered.

Because instead of her sensei, in front of her stood in all his infamous glory- Uchiha Itachi.

-x-

Kakashi heard the sort unconscious murmur leave Sakura's lips "...sensei?" and for a moment, he was startled.

Because Sakura had stopped calling him sensei since their team separated, and Tsunade-sama wasn't going to appear in front of them anytime soon.

So who was she calling?

Sakura raced ahead, even though he told her to stop. Then, to his alarm, he sensed a familiar chakra.

"Everyone, stop!" He lifted his headband. It wasn't going to be easy to deal with him. Chakra flickered over him, and he turned to Sakura, who was staring at Uchiha Itachi's face with distress. Was she already in a genjutsu? No, she just flared her chakra, and she was a genjutsu specialist on top of that. They were the best chance they had against Uchiha Itachi.

"You're..." Naruto started, his face a mask of anger.

"Uchiha Itachi..." Sakura finished for Naruto. Then she adressed the man, her voice confused and her mind reluctant.

"You are Uchiha Itachi?" Sakura shook her head.

"But-" She took a step back, a slow creeping fear coming in. Why did he have her sensei's chakra? Was he her sensei...or did he do something to him? Then her spine straightened.

"Uchiha Itachi of Konoha. You're going to be brought back to the Village of Konohagakure alive for interrogation." Sakura lifted her chin in defiance, taking a step forward. Naruto glanced at Sakura in confusion. "And you're going to spill every secret you have ever had to our T&I."

Kakashi would have sworn there was a moment Itachi's lips curled up, except the next moment, Sakura charged forward covering Kakashi's view of his face.

"SHANNARO!" Sakura slammed her fist into the ground, and the ground burst like a weak dam being flooded. She kicked the rocks into his face, her eyes flickered to Kakashi and he coordinated with her without a single moment of hesitation. He pincered Itachi between his clones and Itachi burst into crows, Kakashi blew the Lightning clone and backed away to let Sakura take the lead again.

Itachi formed fire release signs and Sakura retaliated with water release. It met, creating steam. Behind them, Chiyo released Naruto from his genjutsu. Kakashi threw in weapons that were easily avoided, and Sakura switched with them right behind him and trapped him bodily. He turned around, his Sharingan spinning to lay a genjutsu. Then he stopped.

"Shadow clone, I assume?"

Naruto emerged from the treeline and charged in with a Great Rasengan through Sakura's clone and Itachi.

Sakura kai'd, even though she was good enough that she didn't need to. But against Itachi, it was better safe than sorry. The steam cleared.

"Did he escape?" Sakura asked, even though she was sure the attack hit her and Itachi's body. She knew his fighting style and that kind of trick wouldn't have worked on him no matter what dimension they got transported to.

"There's a different body." Naruto said. They made their way to Naruto, and saw a different person. Chiyo recognized him as one of the Suna council, and Sakura sighed in relief. Kakashi's eyes narrowed on Sakura, and she looked up and met them.

"There are something you need to answer for, Sakura." Kakashi's eyes were hard when he looked at her. Sakura shook her head.

"Not now. We'll talk in Konoha with Hokage-sama."

"Let's go!" Naruto led the charge after that.

Kakashi and his team met up with Gai's team and found the cave at the end where they assumed would be Gaara, along with their enemies, which might include Uchiha Itachi- who somehow was a sore spot for Sakura as well.

Gai went for the other five seals and Sakura destroyed the rock. They went charging in and Kakashi and Sakura's eyes roved for familiar faces.

"It really is that pinkie." The voice brought something familiar out. She found the voice and glared at it. Two shadows stood on a rocky outcrop.

"Oh, did you teach her your glare as well, Itachi?" The man laughed mockingly.

"You! You're that rude asshole!" Sakura remembered the man who was with Itachi the first day. That voice was exactly the same. The man burst out laughing, more genuine than last time.

"Who did she get that language from? Certainly not from you, Itachi-chan~" He laughed again.

"Nevermind, Kisame. Let us go as well." The other shadow disappeared and with a mocking wave at Sakura, the first did too.

Naruto ignored it all to chase after Deidara. Kakashi went after Naruto and Sakura stayed with Chiyo to deal with Sasori.

She was already aware of the relationship Chiyo had with Sasori. She had learnt up all about the S ranked nin in the Bingo book. She never wanted to be caught off guard again, like with Orochimaru. And yet...

She hid her bitterness, and compartmentalized. She was a jonin of Konoha, here to fight against an S ranked puppet user, known for being able to control a hundred puppets at once, and she was fighting alongside his grandmother.

As a medic with perfect chakra control, she didn't have to fear poison, but the same couldn't be said about Chiyo.

"If there is any close range fighting, I will do it. Please make sure to avoid his poison, Chiyo-sama." She said, her voice professional again. Chiyo glanced at her, before nodding.

"It seems I have to take you seriously, student of Uchiha Itachi." He brought out a puppet, and unveiled it in front of them.

"The Third Kazekage!" Chiyo said with shock.

While they were talking, Sakura reviewed what she knew about the Third Kazekage, and unfortunately it wasn't much. She knew he had a kekkei genkai but not which one. Thankfully, Chiyo informed her of it in the middle of their talk, listing out the things the Kazekage was famous for.

The fight was annoying considering she couldn't use her fire release to all its destructive potential, but there was a stream outside that helped her use water whips, dragons, and anything she could to put him at a disadvantage.

Since Sasori was from Suna, he was more used to Wind release, so Water release might be something he hadn't faced very often. Unfortunately, he was quick to take advantage of the water and filled it with poison. She could still wield it, but she had to be careful not to splash it near Chiyo.

But even then she continued to use water and fire, though not to the destructive capacity she could. She half wished it was just her, but Chiyo was invaluable in getting Sakura out of tricky zones and with her know-how of Sasori's puppets. She saved Sakura from being poisoned and Sakura returned the favor by collapsing the cave on top of Sasori with her Earth release. She was still working on her Earth style ninjutsu so it wasn't as good as she would have liked.

That bought her time to release a collaboration with Chiyo of Fire and Wind.

Sasori didn't burn down, but his end wasn't exactly pretty either. He was also kind of enough to tell her about Itachi's brother, and her teammate, the one he assumed she was still involved with, and if she wasn't she could take it as his gift wrapped present of a traitor he wasn't very happy with- Orochimaru.

Sakura thanked him politely before leaving him to die with his parent puppets. If Itachi had taught her anything, it was to keep her thoughts and opinions to herself.

She and Chiyo chased after Naruto and finally reaching after their fight was over and Deidara escaped. Chiyo was old, and had been through three wars. It was the reason she understood the importance of the next generation. When Naruto leaned down to offer his own life force for Gaara, Sakura knelt down and put her hands over Chiyo's adding her own to Chiyo's.

It also helped that she automatically understood how the justu was being carried out.

Chiyo thanked Naruto, and then turned her intense eyes over to Sakura.

"One day, maybe you will pass on this old woman's skill as well." Sakura's eyes softened.

"Of course, Chiyo-baachan. We'll make sure to pass on your legacy. Won't we, Naruto?" Naruto looked at Chiyo with surprise and then he grinned brightly.

"Yeah, of course, baa-chan! We'll protect your legacy too! Hell, Gaara will be your legacy now! Don't you worry, baa-chan!" Sakura smiled back at her teammate. She wasn't sure if he knew that Chiyo was going to die, but she glad those were the words he chose.

Chiyo chuckled under her breath.

"The future...looks really bright right now."

And Chiyo died.

And in her stead, the Kazekage woke up.

While all the Suna nin celebrated the Kazekage's rebirth, Sakura held onto Chiyo's body and silently closed her eyes. Then, when Chiyo's brother came over, she passed on her body to him.

She gave him a low bow of thanks.

To her surprise, Gaara followed suit and then the so did the other Suna nin.

She turned around and smiled at Gaara.

Somehow, the grief of a single death brought together so many shinobi from two different nations.

She hoped Chiyo was glad for that.

* * *

When she returned back, Kakashi and she sat down for a talk with Tsunade-sama about Uchiha Itachi.

She came out of it much much more confused than she went in. But she was told to keep everything confidential. Then she pulled Kakashi to her apartment and got him to spill his suspicions because he seemed much less confused than she did.

In the end they agreed on a few points.

First, Sakura needed to be in isolation for a while so they could be under the assumption that Sakura was being interrogated for being a known associate of a traitor and so close to the Hokage. At least, for the jonins and important people who were allowed to be in the know.

Second, Itachi wasn't actually considered as dangerous a missing nin or a missing nin at all, but the public believed otherwise.

Lastly, Itachi wanted it this way, and the only reason he revealed anything about himself to the Hokage was so Sakura could continue normal life with no suspicions for a while.

So. There was something very, very wrong about the Uchiha Massacre that the Hokage recently got to know and she was helping to hide it, on the behest of Uchiha Itachi.

The only person this actually kept in the dark was Sasuke.

So all she had to do was make sure Sasuke knew to break down the whole domino.

Which was the reason why Kakashi immediately restrained her the second she reached that result. She was stuck in a fuuinjutsu sealed room until Naruto left for the mission _she_ got information of, from Sasori.

She couldn't even be sent on a mission because she was supposed to be under 'confinement'.

So she basically pulled hospital duty behind the scenes and the rest of the time, she fixed up her Earth release which was slowly getting better.

And the rest of the time, she wondered how she got an S ranked missing nin involved in teaching her 12 year old pre-teen self. And how he got invested enough in her that he didn't just kill her the second he heard she had informed Tsunade-sama about his existence.

God knows if she had done half the things he had, she probably wouldn't have had the capacity to like a bratty too-smart-for-her-own-good genin. But he had. And she needed to find a way to save him too, because she didn't want her sensei to die. No matter how depressed he was. He spent a day a month with a bratty kid for more than a year. Then he revealed a big secret so she could live well.

She was attached to her sensei.

Like _hell,_ she was going to let him die to his even more bratty brother and let him become any bigger of an ego maniac than he already was. Like hell, she would let her sensei die for someone when she could do something about it.

She- maybe- got a little obsessed inside her own mind. She barely noticed Naruto coming back to the village, meeting up with her for ramen and then leaving for another mission. Belatedly she realized Naruto hadn't even said anything about Sasuke to her. He had only spoken about his new temporary teammates.

She came out of her own haze when she heard about Asuma-sensei's death. She had immediately gone for Ino to comfort her. She was friends with all of Team 10, specially Ino and Shikamaru. Somehow in the last few years, she had grown a little distant from Ino and closer to Shikamaru, but she cared about both of them.

Shikamaru had surprisingly the one going the avenging route out of the three. She had sat down with him and discussed the man's capabilities as spoken in the reports she had filched from the office. Shikamaru had a lot more knowledge just by virtue of being there during the fight.

They sat down for hours until dusk fell, and Shikamaru talked about everything he knew about Hiden and used what he considered useful and discarded what he considered useless. He considered as many conditions as he could, until Yoshino served them food and Shikamaru fell asleep in less than a minute after he finished eating. She warily eyed the food, glad she had rejected the offer to eat with them.

Yoshino quietly thanked her while Shikaku carried him back to his bed. She nodded back and quietly went back home. Ino was probably going to wake up around then, and she would go out for a walk or go to Choji's house for comfort. Their grief was a soft sad thing, while Shikamaru's was like a hard crystal that forced him to grow out of his lazy world view.

She nostalgically thought of her Academy days, and wondered if they could ever get any farther from then.

-x-

A while after, she heard Shikamaru got his revenge on Hiden and Naruto gushed about the new technique he had created that made him rush to her a few times in fear of frying his chakra system.

Naruto went out again and a while after, she was told to go after him, her ban lifting. She was selected for her perfect chakra control that was needed to seal the sanbi. They almost succeeded, and Sakura had to channel twice the power at one point to stabilize Ino's part of the seal but in the end, the mission failed epically. But hey, at least the kid was happy with his lot in life in the end.

Then, finally they got news that Sasuke had killed Orochimaru and he was collecting a team to help him kill Itachi. Naruto suggested capturing Itachi, and while she wondered if it wouldn't be easier to get Sasuke, she agreed with it. If they went directly after Itachi, it just made her job easier. She needed to bring him down and get him to spill everything to her.

And so they went, Team 8 and the extended new Team 7 with dogs assigned to both. They spent ages searching. They found a few places where they caught Sasuke's scent but nothing lead anywhere. Finally, they found a lead to Sasuke. She hadn't been very positive about this lead either, but then again _she_ wasn't the tracker. At least that was until they had someone stop them from advancing.

This loud seemingly stupid Akatsuki member. Her eyes narrowed and she went over to Kakashi as subtly as she could. Unfortunately, she caught his eye.

"OHHHHH! You must be Itachi-san's student! He didn't tell me anything about you."

"Tch." Sakura glared at the man.

"OWW! Scaryyy. Itachi-san taught you his glare!" He hid behind a tree, shyly. Sakura covered her mouth, her eyes hard and focused on the man. He was trying to keep them there, and she had only one technique that can basically let her go through anything he can do to stop her.

"I can go ahead. Permission?" Kakashi glanced at Sakura.

"Go." Sakura smirked.

Sakura ran forward and hit the trunk of the tree with her chakra-enhanced punch. Naruto and Kiba took the time to attack him from the top while Sakura closed her eyes and went through a few hand signs.

"Creation Rebirth: Heavenly Flames."

And then, flames lit up all over her body. Sakura winced before jumping back, getting a running start and jumping. The flames surrounding her body did the rest.

She called them "heavenly flames" but they sure did feel like hell. The concept was actually quite simple. All energy can be converted from one form to another. She broke down her own cells and converted them to heat. Fire was her first proficient element, as well as Itachi's. Was it even a surprise she managed to master fire release to such a degree? Luckily, she knew Tsunade-sama's creation rebirth jutsu.

Once Sakura mastered regeneration, well, it wasn't easy, but it certainly made the jutsu a hundred times stronger.

Like a supernova, the flames went white and Sakura rose high. She didn't hear any of her team's response, focused as she was on forcing her chakra to keep her body alive. Clouds wetly brushed her skin and she went far enough that she heard the clap of thunder and her eardrums exploding at the sound so close to her.

Then, purely by her chakra senses, she located her sensei's chakra and changed the direction she was travelling. She was going to hit the ground like a meteor. She had better not kill either Itachi or Sasuke, or Naruto would kill her himself.

She opened her eyes, protecting herself with wind chakra until she found a glimpse of white. There was an 8 headed white snake, and somewhere beside that, in an armor, was Itachi. She couldn't even yell. She would suffocate. Sheer chakra was keeping her alive.

And so she chose the snake as her safe spot, though it wasn't like it would even serve as her cushion, she thought wryly.

She hit the ground so hard, her body was almost shattered on impact. She was also sure that the snake was definitely dead as well.

She turned off the fire component of her jutsu and waited as her Creation Rebirth seal did it's job. Piece by painful piece, her body fixed the damage. She pulled the flesh together by sheer will, and the existing chakra in her forehead pumped through her body to fix all the damage she had done.

The whole technique was basically a test of her pain resistance. The first part that liquified her very cells and turned it into raw nature chakra, would have killed her by sheer pain. Thankfully she knew how to shut off her pain receptors. The second part that healed her of the damage wasn't any less painful when she was reconstructing her own body in minutes instead of days or even hours. She was taking Tsunade-sama's technique to a level that even she never could have.

At this point, it was the peak of her ability that combined both of her teacher's techniques.

However, it would take some time before she was well enough to stand up.

A few moments later, a surprisingly young and utterly surprised face looked at her over the edge of the crater.

"Sakura?" His voice incredulous. "What the _hell_ are you doing here?"

"Hey sensei," she responded with a half torn throat. "No worries, I'm just here to ruin your plans tonight."

"Wh-Wha-" Another voice croaked out.

"Sakura? Sensei? Itachi?" Sasuke sounded even more incredulous than his brother. Sasuke stumbled up, and away from his brother, surprised. Itachi had been on the other side of the crater and about to kill him so he could tear his eyes out. The half destroyed Susano'o over both the brothers crumbled away.

Itachi opened his mouth and then froze. His hands came up to his mouth and he coughed, and blood came pouring out of his mouth. Sasuke had barely even looked at Sakura, his attention focused on Itachi, his eyes wide with horror.

"What the hell?"

"Sa-suke." She whispered, "He's going to die. You have to bring him to me. There's something you need to hear from his mouth."

Sasuke finally turned his gaze away from Itachi to look at his previous teammate. His sharingan flared to life, instinctive in his panic, permanently engraving the horrifying image in front of him to his memory.

In the middle of a crater, on the edges of which he and Itachi stood, protected by the fire by Itachi's Susano'o, Sakura lay. Though the body could barely be called Sakura. There was no clothes, no hair. There was barely any skin. Half of her muscles were melted, her bones shattered. She didn't even have either of her arms and only one of her legs. The only leg she had was attached by a tether of gooey muscle. The blood around her was practically melting off the ground.

Sasuke could only imagine how hot the ground was at the center, but it was Sakura's body that horrified him to his core.

"Sa-sakura...?"

He turned around and puked.

Sakura chuckled. Her head and neck was reforming already and he was honestly grateful he didn't have to see his genin teammate in such a condition for much longer. She seemed to have become something close to immortal if she was actually going to heal herself of that somehow. Orochimaru would be jealous, he thought absentmindedly, while watching her body pull itself together.

Her skin hadn't yet formed, and her organs didn't even seem half there. But they were growing back, as he watched. Her bones straightened, grew, and muscles, tendons and ligaments formed.

The Susano'o reformed over Itachi's body, pushing away Sasuke, to his distraction. The blade pointed at Sakura's broken form.

"I'll die if you do that sensei." Sakura said. She coughed out a bit of blood- the first sign that her blood was beginning to reform. She was practically regenerating her body from her stem cells.

"In spite of what it looks like, I'm not actually immortal."

"And- what makes you think I care?" Itachi said, his sword still aimed at Sakura.

"Well, you can do what you want. I'd just tell you that if he ever comes close to Kakashi, or Konoha, he'll learn the truth on his own. You can't hide him away anymore."

Sasuke looked between his brother and his ex-teammate.

"What truth?" he whispered, his voice breaking in the middle. He cleared his throat.

When no one answered him, he said it again, louder.

"Tell me! WHAT **TRUTH**?"

Itachi showed real hesitation and exhaustion then. His Susano'o crumbled like paper around him.

"The truth about the massacre, Sasuke." Sakura replied to Sasuke, still not taking her eyes off Itachi.

Itachi let out a wet chuckle.

"How do you even know about it, Sakura? Hokage-sama wouldn't have told you, I would know if she had."

Sakura's body slowly reformed. Her heart, protected by her own flames and chakra, continued pumping on its own as her vessels reformed under her steady guidance. Sometimes it really was a wonder what a person could live through if only they had chakra.

Sasuke had seen many things beside Orochimaru, but this level of regeneration, of chakra control...even Kabuto had never achieved it.

"I don't. I just guessed that something during that night was hidden from the rest of the world. Specially considering the way Hokage-sama let you go."

"Ah." Itachi said. He attempted to stand up and somehow making his way close to Sakura with the worst walking posture she had ever seen out of her sensei. He collapsed beside her.

"Can you stall my death for an hour, Sakura? I suppose Sasuke should hear the truth from my mouth if nothing else."

Sakura sighed in relief, before smiling brightly.

"Of course, sensei. Anything you like."

Itachi shook his head at her cheerful tone.

"I never should have taken you as a student if I planned to bring my secret to my grave." Sakura laughed.

"I guess so, sensei." Itachi placed his hand on her forehead, the source of the healing power she used, he found.

"You really did learn it from her, after all." Sakura smiled, funneling as much healing chakra to Itachi as she could without leaving herself dead.

Sasuke clenched his fist, before sliding down the slope as well.

Out of the three, he was the one who seemed physically good enough to fight, but seeing Itachi's Susano'o and the chakra they both still had, he could tell that if he tried to fight right then, they wouldn't be the ones dying then.

Moments later, in the middle of Itachi's retelling of the events of the night, a man in a whirl mask appeared in front of the three exhausted nin.

"It seems that there are three nin who need to be dead quite soon, hmm? Don't you think so, Itachi?" His voice was deep, unlike when Sakura had met him. "I hadn't expected this sort of interference at this point in the plan."

Itachi's face held a flicker of fear.

"Madara."

The masked man made a noise of discontent.

"Is that how you show your respect to your elders, Itachi?" Itachi winced.

Sakura focused her energy on regenerating one of her legs, and getting Itachi into some sort of fighting shape. Whoever this man was, he was dangerous. And it would take the rest of the team a while to arrive.

" _We should leave before the Konoha team arrives_."

Sakura nearly startled at the new voice. Someone hidden from her view by Itachi. He subtly shifted and she made out the other man's body. Some sort of plant-like material surrounded him.

"Yes. Hatake Kakashi is leading the team." Another voice from the same body spoke.

The man looked at the three of them for a moment longer, his eyes lingering on Sakura.

"You have learnt much, student of Uchiha Itachi." There was a swirling around her body. "Show me how much."

"No!" She heard Itachi cry out, and she was pulled into something.

She had managed to pull away from Itachi enough to not let him get caught up.

But when she landed harshly on the floor, her lungs almost giving out, she turned her head and found a finger laying beside her.

-x-

It took forever to repair the damage to her body, and after that, she ate while walking around the empty desolate place. She came to a conclusion in less than a day- it was a place full of nothing. She was nowhere and she had no idea how to get out. She had travelled the distance of the Land of Fire, and still found no way of getting out.

There was a bloody arm laying about somewhere far from her. Farther from there, she found a few changes of clothes and quite a few splatters of blood.

There was no night or day and nothing that could give her a clue.

So, she walked. And walked. And kept walking. And kept returning to the places she had found the arm and the clothes. While the blood was curious, it was also very old. It had to have been more than a decade or two old.

Sometimes she sensed the man's chakra, but never for more than a moment. As if afraid to appear near her, however unlikely that was.

She practiced her new fire technique that she had used so hastily to try to save Itachi. She worried that he would be dead by the time she returned. She wondered if the masked man would be dead before she could get out, leaving her trapped here. She hoped her team didn't end up fighting the man, because the name 'Madara' didn't seem to bode well for anyone.

And she hoped Konoha accepted Itachi back.

-x-

It took many days. Days she wished she had summons, or some knowledge of fuinjutsu or some idea about how space time jutsu worked. She had focused on medicine, on ninjutsu and genjutsu that she had never had time to spare looking elsewhere.

Then her monotony broke when she consistently felt his chakra appear in one place.

She sped off in his direction, jumping blocks faster to reach. And when she did, she found Kakashi and the masked man. Though this time he wasn't masked. They didn't even sense her, as she watched them go at it. Enraptured, she watched them fight.

It was like she was watching a Sasuke and Naruto instead, for some reason. They were so obviously connected that she felt reluctant to interfere. She could tell how difficult it was for Kakashi but how much he took this man as his own burden instead of anyone else's. Similar to how Naruto treated Sasuke, no matter that he defected of his own free will.

When the masked man left, she walked forward and calmly got to work on Kakashi's injury. She ignored his flinch and startle. Her chakra flickered to life under her hand and she healed Kakashi up smoothly.

"So you were stuck here all this time, Sakura?"

"Yes. This place is huge and I hadn't found a way to escape." She sighed in relief. "I was glad to find someone at least. Do you know how to get back?"

Kakashi's eyes flickered.

"What did we discuss when we met the Hokage last time?" Sakura rolled her eyes.

"Uchiha Itachi." She felt worry bubbling inside her at his name. "...did Tsunade-sama heal him?" She asked reluctantly. She would rather not have to ask Kakashi, but he was the only person who knew how important the answer was to her. Kakashi sighed, ruffling his hair.

"Yes. He's actually already fighting." She frowned.

"He wasn't in a fighting state when I checked. He would need _months_ before he was ready for the field." Kakashi gave a humorless smile.

"Yes, well. Having the Forth Shinobi War declared on all the Elemental Countries does that to people."

Sakura's eyes widened at that piece of news. The Forth Shinobi War?

"Wait. All the countries? So who are we fighting?" Kakashi nodded at the space the masked man had left through.

"An army of the undead, Hashirama clones in even greater numbers, Uchiha Obito who was pretending to be Uchiha Madara, the real Uchiha Madara, and the juubi- the accumulation of all the nine biju." Sakura took a moment to take a deep breath.

"Okay, sure." She placed her hand on Kakashi's forehead, refilling his chakra stores. He would definitely need it. Kakashi flexed his chakra, feeling it settle in his body and nodded in thanks.

"When we leave, we still have Madara, Obito and the juubi left on the main battlefront. Itachi defeated Kabuto, who was the one controlling the undead. He should have reached the battlefield already." Sakura swallowed and nodded.

She had been trapped alone for months. She had been terrified inside herself that she wouldn't be able to escape. This was a sort of torture after all and she was just glad that she had managed to run as far away from the masked man's spots and actually sleep. It was surprising that he hadn't actually done anything to her, but she was too glad to say anything.

She would finally be leaving this empty hell, and if she could, she never wanted to see it again.

"Okay, let's go." She breathed out slowly. A hand dropped on top of her head, ruffling her hair.

"I'm glad you're fine, Sakura." She looked away, a little glad but also a little bitter. She smiled, nodding.

"I am too, Kakashi." She gently moved his hand away.

"We should leave now."

Kakashi looked at her for a moment before sighing himself.

"Of course, Sakura."

And his Sharingan- his Mangekyo- swirled round and round until it consumed her again in a re-experience she had been silently terrified of.

When it finally dropped her on solid ground, she sighed in relief, before her eyes widened.

"What the hell."

Because not too far away from her was an awe inspiring sight.

A huge red barrier in the distance, and between her and the shield were shinobi of every color and nation. They all had forehead protectors with the word 'shinobi' on it. Her heart was pounding loudly at the sight. Then she heard the voice of the First Hokage, speaking in her head- _Ino,_ a part of her whispered longingly. Then she heard Tsunade-sama. She couldn't stop herself from replying.

' _Tsunade-sama.'_ She spoke in. ' _I'll join in.'_

There was a momentary pause before Tsunade warmly replied her back ' _You're late, you brat.'_

She smiled, then she and Kakashi ran for the shinobi.

Everyone was surrounded by a chakra cloak, like Naruto when he accessed his bijuu's power. Sakura wondered what else she had missed, while watching with wide eyes as Naruto and Sasuke attacked Obito.

Then her eyes narrowed as they got thrown to the ground.

Obito was taunting them while she ran for them.

"Naruto, Sasuke. Are you both okay?" She stopped in the middle, her hands reaching for both simultaneously. Sasuke flinched slightly, but she ignored it, forcing her hand on his shoulder.

Naruto looked back with a smile for her.

"You're okay." She fixed up their injuries before opening up her seal again. Her seal was practically bursting with chakra after her meditation in that dimension. It was quite an effective place for training, if she said so herself.

Naruto gasped, as her seal unfurled all over his and Sasuke's body.

"What- Sakura?" She kept her eyes on her opponent.

"It's healing everyone you have your chakra connected to. Don't worry about it." She said.

"No, that's not what I mean. You have Nature chakra mixed with your chakra. I didn't know before but I think that is why you are even better than baa-chan at healing."

Sakura's eyes flickered to Naruto and back.

"And also, our opponent's weakness is also Nature Chakra." He cracked his knuckles, grinning. She smirked.

"Hm. I guess it's your turn not to pull us down, Sasuke." She looked at him, to find him smirking.

"I think you have the wrong idea here, Sakura." He looked at Naruto for a moment of silent communication before Naruto started glowing, and created a large golden image of the kyuubi out of sheer chakra, and Sasuke's eyes swirled to Mangekyo, creating Susano'o over the pure chakra bijuu form. She was surprised to find herself between them in the middle of the forehead of the bijuu.

She focused her chakra and her seal flowed out, creating lines over the armor.

Then it burst into heat.

Over the armor, blue flames danced.

The tails flicked at Obito and the tails extended like lazers, almost cutting Obito in half, had he not dodged. It gouged into the tree cutting off branches went through.

Behind her, Naruto and Sasuke shot Sakura a wary look, as she concentrated her chakra throughout the being she was inside.

She was managing wind pressure, heat, and even chakra control over the whole environment so as not to hurt their allies.

And so, Team 7 fought against Obito.

With Sakura there, it was like they were playing with Obito instead of fighting, he couldn't even touch them without Sakura turning up the heat so high even Naruto started sweating.

Nature chakra and pure fire chakra was a mixture no one wanted anyone to be playing with. It almost felt like they had gone too close to the Sun, like they would burn up any moment.

Obito fell, then they went after Madara while Kakashi took over Obito.

Then she found out the truth of who Madara truly was. Obito truly was a pale imitation when someone knew the real him.

Uchiha Madara was pure power.

She turned the Earth into lava, turned into a meteor, and created a lazer and he remained unfazed and blinded. She was told about pure taijutsu injuring him and so she turned on the heavenly flame, powered by what she now knew to be nature chakra and fought.

With Naruto and Sasuke beside her, she tore her body apart again and again to destroy the physical embodiment of power in front of her.

She might have passed out, she might have died.

But the next thing she knew...

There were two voices she could hear.

One Naruto and another Sasuke.

She didn't hear the words, but she somehow still understood them.

Naruto and Sasuke were standing back up again. Standing together.

And suddenly, they turned to her.

And then there was an old man in front of them, smiling. Extending his hand to her forehead.

" _And you, child...I will give you my knowledge. May my wisdom be of use to you"_

She heard his voice like it was the wind whistling in her ear. It faded away slowly, like it was reluctant to leave.

When she woke up, she felt two parts of herself- each farther away than they should be.

She stood back up with a hole in her heart and brought it back together by sheer will.

Chakra would follow her will. The _world_ would follow her will. Because she understood it and it her.

Nature was her and she was nature.

The purest part of who a person was nature. She could reconstruct her whole body with even a single cell, because that cell was her. She could call nature to her, because she was nature.

The Wind raised her up, and she flew. She had been closer to Sasuke, but he was already gone. They were both together.

She closer her eyes, and nature came together. Then it pulled apart for her. She stepped through and her hand slashed through what seemed like empty space.

"Sakura." "Sakura."

Two voices said her name in the exact same tone.

She didn't even have to turn her head to find them. She was a part of them, just like they were a part of her.

"Naruto. Sasuke. What was that distortion?"

They gave a glance at the tear she had opened up in the world, that was already rapidly closing.

"Three of you? One with the Sage's chakra, and another with his eyes. So what do you have, girl?" She blinked, all possibilities of Madara already going through her mind.

"I don't think you really want to know."

She ran, jumped and slashed through the dimensional Madara, forcing it to go back inside.

"How." His eyes narrowed but he didn't wait for an explaination. Naruto and Sasuke forced him into a lock and were about to seal him when he substituted and ran for Kakashi and Obito.

This time her eyes narrowed as she ran for his real body, leaving the shadow behind for Naruto and Sasuke to deal with. Though she was fast, she wasn't fast enough to stop him from driving a hand through Kakashi's Sharingan, destroying it- and probably his brain too, she feared- and reaching for Obito with his other hand. He plucked out the other Rinnengan before Sakura slammed into his arm, separating him from Obito.

He still had time to laugh and taunt him while she manually separated Obito from Zetsu, whose true identity she finally knew. Her chakra coiled around it, bringing it closer before she wrenched open the pocket dimension Obito's Sharingan possessed and dumped him there.

Obito gasped, doubling over.

She reached for Kakashi, while Madara stopped mid taunt about this Rin person and attacked her. Naruto and Sasuke intercepted him while she healed up Kakashi's half blown head. She had already saved so many lived just by the virtue of having learnt medicine. It was really nice of the Sage to help her out with that. Though, now, she could probably reconstruct a whole person and bring them back to life.

Maybe she wouldn't tell everyone though. Or she would be dead in a day, trying to save everyone who died. Something like that would probably drain her and the world dry by the time they finished.

With that done, the three of them joined forces.

Unfortunately, it seemed they were quite late in destroying Madara. He flew up and created _actual_ _meteors_ , because why not? She and some of Naruto's clones went for the shadows while Sasuke and the real Naruto went for the meteors. So she was better at dealing with the shadows, but she kind of wanted to burst though a meteor and smash Madara's face in. Unfortunately, that wouldn't happen because Sasuke came back in a hurry and covered Naruto, Kakashi and Obito under his Susano'o.

"Sakura, hurry." Sasuke said, panic lacing his voice.

She glanced up at the sky before her eyes widened at the sight. The moon...

She almost tripped through the rip in space. She made sure none of the moonlight made it through inside. That would be disasterous.

Naruto actually tripped over her when she suddenly appeared while Sasuke was trying to stop him from going out. She latched onto his other arm.

"We'll get them out later. But first, we need to sit the light out. When it dies out, we'll attack again. But for now, we're going to have to stay here."

Naruto shot her a curious look.

"Super gramps never really said what you got. I know I have his chakra and Sasuke the eyes. He told us about-"

"-you both being soul brothers. Yes, I kind of heard all that." Sakura scratched her neck sheepishly.

"I think it might be because I shared my chakra with both of you and you with me? It brought me to the Sage's notice or something." She shrugged. _As if_ , she said inside her. The sage's words were for he alone.

"But what exactly did he give you?" Sasuke asked. Sakura tilted her head, considering him.

"I'd say it's something like 'the truth of the universe'?" His brow furrowed.

"Is that how you healed me?" Kakashi asked. A finger touching his eye where Obito's Sharingan used to be, but now rests his own eye, regenerated.

"Yeah. It's the 'true you'. Even Naruto can do that, I think." Naruto nodded.

"I stopped Bushier Brow's chakra from dying out like that."

"Just stop? I guess I can fix him up after this." Naruto shrugged.

"You're the medic." Sakura hid a smile. Kakashi had reached Obito while they talked, slapping his face a few times to wake him. Sakura went up to Obito and woke him up with a tap. He spluttered awake. He would be a little disoriented but it was better than being a dead weight.

"Now, there are some things about the scenario that you all need to know." Sakura said, her voice serious.

"First, Naruto and Sasuke absolutely cannot die. And second, the Infinite Tsukiyomi started, which means Madara isn't going to be the problem anymore. Kaguya is going to wake up now. Third, I threw Zetsu, who was Kaguya's will incarnate, not Madara's, into Obito's Sharingan dimension. So we shouldn't use that place until we are going to deal with him."

"Also, we should deal with her as soon as possible."

Sasuke removed his Susano'o soon after and all the chakra got sucked into him, to Madara's panic. Sakura explained the knowledge The Sage had given her while Madara was in denial and regret. Kaguya emerged from his body and went straight for Naruto and Sasuke, as she had thought.

She was probably the subtlest presence among all of them because she was connected to Nature in a way neither of the two of them were.

She burnt and cut her hair, and was severely glad she was practically immortal with how carelessly the woman treated her when compared to Naruto and Sasuke. She saw her children in the two, which disturbed both of them, but it also gave them both a chance to survive when they wouldn't have. They shifted to another dimension with an ease even she didn't have yet.

Naruto managed to learn flying, though probably differently than she did, and assigned a clone to Kakashi and Obito. Both watched them, disoriented and mostly, helpless.

They shifted from dimension to dimension, fighting all the while- Sasuke with his Rinnengan, Naruto with Senjutsu and the power of the tailed beasts, and Sakura with her virtual immortality and Nature itself, though with an occasional dimensional rift thrown in. Kaguya was getting trapped between the power the three of them possessed, and Zetsu was already gone- locked away in another dimension, for the meantime.

She filled up Kakashi and Obito's chakra and somehow made up a plan with everyone. It was tricky with some well placed uses of Sakura's and Obito's dimensional tears, they managed to get Kaguya trapped. With that, Naruto was free to pull out his new bijuu friends and Sasuke looked at Sakura to get them all out.

But she didn't even have to do anything before she felt a pull through the dimension. She resisted it, letting the others leave while the world broke down around her. The emptiness was more ideal than an Uchiha dimensional space that no one knew when it would be torn open. She opened up Obito's rift, pulled a complained Zetsu through, and threw him into the moon.

Then created her own dimensional rift and got back out.

Naruto was jabbering away at his dad while he was slowly fading, and Sasuke was standing and looking at him. He turned around when she arrived, offering her a nod of acknowledgement.

She wasn't sure what had changed in the few months she had been away, but whatever it was, seems to have made Sasuke a bit accepting about everything in his life. She offered him a smile back. She walked to him, bumping her shoulder to his arm.

The other Hokages chose that moment to enthrust the future to them and faded away. The Forth Hokage faded slower, wanting to talk to Naruto. She turned her attention away from them and to Sasuke who was watching them wistfully.

"How is Itachi? I hadn't managed to heal him. Kakashi told me he stopped the Edo Tensai." Sasuke nodded. Then hesitated. She paused.

"Is he okay?" She focused on Sasuke, because maybe he wasn't. It still was hard to imagine Itachi dying, but what she had felt when she was healing him... "Please tell me what happened after I got taken, Sasuke." He looked at Sakura for a moment before sighing.

"I didn't know he had a terminal disease until he was literally confessing it on his death bed. We almost didn't manage to make it to Konoha in time." He looked away, pained at the memory. "A lot of things happened about then. The Hokage managed to save him, Naruto heard that the Toad Sage died," Sakura's eyes widened in surprise at that, but Sasuke didn't wait for her to express her shock, "Itachi got enumerated and I ended up killing Danzo for ordering Itachi and blamed it on Akatsuki. Officially." He adde

Sakura raised an amused eyebrow. Danzo was an infamous general during war times. Harsh but he had brought many victories.

"Then there was an Akatsuki attack by a man named Pein. Most of Konoha died, but Naruto managed to get the man to revive everyone from the dead, so no one really died in the end." There was a haunted look on his face and Sakura decided to not ask for any details about that, clearly, Sasuke considered it one of his traumatic days. Sakura silently wondered why Sasuke was being so talkative. So unlike himself to her now. He had always treated her badly, dismissively. Even when she had done something worthwhile, he always seemed to overlook it.

She always quietly thought that Itachi had put a genjutsu on her to stop her from relating him to his real identity. Something that unknowingly, stopped her from thinking about Sasuke. It helped her get over her silly crush.

"The Hokage healed Itachi up, but he relapsed so I knocked him out and left him in Konoha. It should be relatively safe." He added at the end.

She thanked him for the update, then he asked her to tell her about her time with Itachi. And she wondered if Itachi had already imbued Sasuke with his manners and lessons about repaying already. Because that really was the only explaination why he had been so forward with all the information he gave her.

Somehow, Uchiha Sasuke had grown up.

She could shed a tear.

She didn't though, instead sitting down in front of the Sage and talking about her times with Itachi. How they met, how he taught, how he let her talk about her issues with him and the way he volunteered things about himself. She had always found a few of his issues so silly because they could be solved with a little communication, and she had never understood why he would say it wasn't possible.

She weaved tales about Itachi that Sasuke might never had had a chance to know and she was glad when Sasuke offered some information back.

They would have spent much more time talking about Itachi but Naruto reluctantly came back after his talk and grieving and they both decided to free everyone as soon as possible. She laid a comforting hand on his shoulder, squeezing until he pulled away with a sad smile.

The two of them finally undid the world wide genjutsu and freed everyone.

* * *

It took a while for her to settle into the new changes of her life. Sasuke wasn't a terrible asshole, specially when Itachi was there. Specially to her and Naruto, who he had somehow seemed to have acknowledged as a sort of equal after fighting what equaled to a goddess.

She took in Itachi and what seemed like a thousand cases a day, and healed them up slowly like their body demanded. She fixed up Itachi's illness day by day and they re-established their relationship. This time, as equals more than student and sensei. Though, she doubted she would ever be forgetting those times.

In some ways, she had acknowledged Itachi more than any other person in the world. More than, even, Sasuke or Naruto. Something that, he and Ino got her over. Making her realize that she knew both her boys but she had been so afraid of them treating her like they had in the Academy and during their genin days that she had blocked them out first.

Shikamaru had taken one look at Itachi and Ino conspiring together for Sakura and called it too troublesome to bother. Though he had given her a heads-up on it.

Somehow, Naruto, Sasuke and Sakura always clicked.

They weren't strangers. They weren't exactly friends. They weren't lovers.

They somehow just were.

Sometimes she thought the three of them were just meant to be. Sometimes, it felt like the three of them were an order of the world.

Because that's what they were.

The new order.

The strongest team.

The strongest three.

The ones blessed by the Sage of Six Path, the ones who fought a goddess.

The Saviors of Humanity.

They became legends in a matter of minutes. Within a month, even the most remote corner of the country knew about the three.

The one who shone Golden like the Sun.

The one who Protected the Shadows.

The one who Revived the Dead.

They were Harbingers. Some called them of Calamity, some of Peace.

In the end, the three of them were just people who somehow always seemed to find their way back to each other.

They weren't anything special, in the end.

Even if the whole world seemed to disagree.

**Author's Note:**

> So there are quite a few implications in the story.  
> 1\. Itachi likes Sakura. You can decide romantic or platonic cause it's not explicitly stated. But I know what it feels like to me in the end there. Its also partially the reason why Sasuke basically is treating her as his sister. Also cause Naruto already talked sense into him ages ago. Without a losing-my-hand fight.
> 
> 2\. Itachi put a genjutsu that wouldn't let Sakura thing about Sasuke when in relation to him. Since Sakura thought about Itachi most of the time, she basically didn't think about him for over a year, and then she was too busy. It was basically a case of 'out of sight, out of mind'. I guess.  
> I already mentioned it in the chapter somewhere though.
> 
> Anyway, I think I put more in, but it's 6am in the morning and I really need to sleep, cause I'm not sure I'm thinking straight. Whelp! Time for me to go! Leave a comment and tell me how you liked it! Or not!! Though I'd rather not hear if you think it's terrible. Please. That would make me cry. You wouldn't want me to cry right after the New Year, right?
> 
> Also, on that note, HAPPY NEW YEAR. Have a blast people. Though not a literal blast. Please.  
> SO yeah.  
> I'm Out!


End file.
